Can your company afford the impact of unprecedented critical knowledge loss? You are at more risk than you know!
In 1997, with the Cold War well behind them, thousand of engineers who had helped design and maintain the B-2 bomber were asked to leave the integrated systems sector of Northrop Grumman. As the nearly 12,000 workers filed out the door, leaving only 1,200 from a staff of 13,000, they took with them years of experience and in-depth knowledge about what was considered at the time to be the most complex aircraft ever built. Northrop Grumman knew it had to keep enough of that know-how to support the division’s long-term maintenance of the B-2 bomber, so a newly formed knowledge management team identified top experts and videotaped interviews with them before they left. But it was hard to get everything in a single interview, says Scott Shaffar, Northrop Grumman’s director of knowledge management for the Western region of the integrated systems sector. “We did lose some of that knowledge,” says Shaffar. “In an exit interview, you can capture certain things, but not a lifetime of experience.” By 2010, more than half of all workers in the United States will be over 40. As of 2005, the baby boomers (the generation born after World War II) range in age from 41 to 59. According to a study by AARP, more than 60 percent of U.S. companies are currently bringing back retirees as contractors or consultants. *************************************************************************************************************************Retaining technical and business knowledge is critical to the continuity of any production software application. Below are a few key reasons why IT managers need to capture the knowledge from their “key knowledge workers” and develop a support knowledge base for their in-house application maintenance team.
- To provide current and useful knowledge to an application support team. Support knowledge is specific and must be quickly and easily obtained. Support knowledge must also be current because staff members are updating their personal “knowledge database” everyday by doing their jobs. Conversely, development knowledge is voluminous but is not kept current and is difficult to glean useful support information from when addressing a support issue. Knowledge is an asset of an organization that is acquired over years. Knowledge consists of information about business operations, the technical environment and how they two interact.
- To understand and document the critical pressure points within an application.
- To provide application knowledge to a new support person or team. This situation occurs when external consultants are no longer under contract or when people are redeployed, retire or resign.
- To mitigate the risk of business interruption. For example: If specific application knowledge is not available because it is in someone’s head and they are not available, it will take other(s) more effort and time to address any application related problems, questions or enhancements. In the case of problems, this additional time is lost is not only from IT personnel, but more importantly from the users who require the application to service their business function.
Risk Mitigation
CAI’s application knowledge capture process helps your company to reduce exposure to significant business risks by:
- Increased accuracy of development and support estimates
- Increased accuracy and timeleness of problem corrections
- Reduced dependency on knowledge residing solely with specific individuals (system guru’s)
- Platform for system functionality definition if system needs to be replaced
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